Seven Snogs
by Eos rosy-fingered
Summary: A series of unrelated stories for LJ comm 7snogs. Bella/James.
1. Uniform

**Chapter 1**

**Uniform**

**Summary:** Having found a cottage in the woods, Bella found a bit of her past and future.

**Beta: **Mistletoe

The cabin where they stopped had been clearly abandoned for years. Barely checking if anyone was inside, James went to hunt in the surrounding forest, leaving Bella to explore all the nooks and crannies.

She moved slowly around the house, rummaging through the closets and cupboards. All she found were musty, old-fashioned woman's clothes, fancy porcelain so worn out that the pattern was hardly recognizable, crochet serviettes on every surface, mirrors in solid, gold-colored frames, still lifes depicting massive bouquets, and dust—dust everywhere.

One of the doors disclosed a steep, narrow staircase, overgrown with cobwebs. Having found nothing of interest downstairs, Bella decided to explore the attic. Fighting the disgust, she made her way through the webs, thick and heavy with dust, pushing them aside before they clung to her face. The wooden stairs creaked with her every step. A crooked door at the top opened with the slightest of pushes.

The interior made Bella take an involuntary step back, almost falling down the stairs. Two of the four walls of the attic were covered with mirrors. A wooden bar ran along their whole length.

After a long moment of hesitation, Bella stepped over a high threshold into the room. The door closed behind her with a soft thump. Overcoming the tightness in her chest, Bella came up to the smooth surface.

What little light that filtered through the small, dirty windows showed the thick layer of dust on the mirrors. Looking past the grime, Bella saw her own reflection. Quickly averting her eyes, she spotted something else: the old pictures shoved behind the mirror's edge.

Bella came to look at them. She saw a ballerina in a deep bow, half-sitting on the floor, with her fine-featured face turned up to the photographer. Bella's attention was arrested by her eyes: triumphant and joyous; filled with that kind of self-satisfaction that comes with achieving one's aim. The next pictures showed the ballerina among the enormous bouquets of flowers in what must have been her dressing room, the next one—her standing by an old-fashioned car with a small dog under her arm, waving at someone outside the frame. The biggest picture showed her on stage, dressed in a black costume with tutu made of feathers, with an arrogantly poised head and a slight curl to her delicate lips.

"Hello, Odile," said Bella quietly, touching the picture. "You were so much trouble."

Dragging her finger along the barre, Bella looked around the little studio: nothing except a simple, wooden chair and chest.

Bella sat criss-cross in front of the chest and opened it slowly. It was filled to the brim with layers of tulle of different colors, satin ribbons, shawls and pointe shoes. Bella dug into the treasury and started to lay out all the pieces on the floor next to her. The faded fabrics still had an air of grandeur to them, the satin stretched over the toe box still gleamed in the faint light.

When her fingers glided over the feathers of a black tutu, Bella stood up.

"All right. Don't look," she said to the woman in the pictures and wrapped the skirt around her waist, slightly above her jeans. The costume was fitted for a slimmer person, but Bella didn't care. She tied the ribbons as best as she could and moved the tutu around, pushing the gap to her back. "Much better."

Pulling herself up so that her posture would match the refined costume, Bella tried a few positions for the arms.

_Don't stick out your elbows, Bella, _her former professor's voice sounded in her head. _Round, Bella, they have to be round!_

Round elbows seemed to be one of the marvels of this world, yet the woman who had lived here had managed that. Bella stared at her graceful pose.

Curious what kind of exercises she would still be able to do, Bella tried the five positions of the feet. She had never managed a full turnout at the hips and ankles, and after all those years, the moves were less than correct, but somehow, with the glamorous skirt on, everything looked better. After a few repetitions her movements became more fluid and confident.

Bella smiled and rose en pointe. Her worn sneakers didn't provide enough support but for a few basic steps.

The layers of feathers in her skirt bounced slightly with her every move, giving an impression of more skilled performance. A pirouette must be something that would bring the tutu to its full advantage, Bella decided. One careful whip of her left leg to the side and then back sent her body into a spin. The feathers rustled and bobbed.

"Nice, Bella. Now, with life," she ordered herself and spun several times with brief breaks between each turn. Her eyes caught her own image every time she returned, her arms moving fluently, her working leg resting in one place, according to the rules, and her skirt flowing like a five-year-old girl's dream.

Bella laughed out and stopped abruptly, feeling giddy.

"Show them what you're made of," she said, panting slightly.

She eyed the room carefully and then went to stand in one of the corners.

"You only live once," she muttered and made a step forward, taking a swing with her other leg. Her body pivoted and she made another step forward. It was quicker and the whip more forcible. She bit her lip and took another step, still quicker. Her arms kept on opening and closing almost without her thinking about it. The consequent pirouettes carried her across the room. Elated by the fluidity of her movements, Bella risked a glance into the mirror and crashed into a solid barrier.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it? And you fell into my arms just like you had done then," she heard.

James hold her up to his chest, crushing the ancient skirt between them. Bella looked up at him, catching her breath. Her head spun.

James' eyes slid to her lips, and he bowed to kiss her. Bella closed her eyes and returned the kiss. A slightly coppery flavor tinged her senses when his lips parted hers. James shivered and kissed her harder.

When he broke away, he took a few steps back.

"Brings back memories," he repeated, barely above a whisper.

"I told you not to kiss me after you've..." Bella said between her gasps for air.

James glanced at her mouth.

"It's your blood."

Bella touched her lip where her teeth had bitten into the flesh when she collided with him.

"Oh." She licked it.

James watched the dart of her tongue as the drop of blood disappeared into her mouth.

"Yes, oh," he said harshly. "One of these days I won't be able to stop myself. Aren't you afraid?" He looked her straight in the eyes.

Bella scrunched up her nose and took off the tutu. They had this conversation much too often.

"No."

She placed everything back in the chest and closed the heavy lid.

"What if I got carried away?"

"I will be dead and you will be sorry."

"Sorry?" James assumed his nonchalant pose, with his hands jammed into the pockets of his worn out jeans. "Me? No. I'd find myself a new human to play with."

"Just like you did all those times before."

"Exactly."

"Only none of your human toys survived a day with you." Bella walked past James, opened the door and started to walk down the stairs.

James squeezed past her in the narrow staircase and walked backwards in front of her.

"It doesn't prove anything," he said and raised his brows, looking at her provocatively.

"No?"

"No."

"Let's see."

Bella reached out to him, and James immediately stopped. Propping herself on his shoulders, Bella kissed him delicately. His arms went around her and he kissed her back.

Bella broke away and rested her cheek against his temple.

"You were right. It doesn't prove anything," she whispered, hiding her smile.

She felt his hands sliding under her t-shirt on her back, just above her waist.

He muttered something unintelligible against her neck and then said, "You know, you could always perform that Black Swan for me some time."

Bella sighed exasperatedly, freed herself from his embrace and started to descend.

"Odile wasn't a swan. Odette was. During the day."

"Don't change the subject. We could stay here for a while and you could wear that feathery thing again, without your jeans for a change." He caught up with her. "What do you say?"

Bella smiled without turning around to look at him.

"I say that you really want to see me breaking my leg again, don't you?"

They exited the staircase and went into the sitting room.

"Come on, I'll catch you." He grabbed her by her upper arm to demonstrate the move.

Bella swayed to the side and propped herself against an armchair. From between its backrest and the wall, a walking stick slid out and fell to the floor.

"If this is how you're going to do it—" she began, bending down to pick it up, only to knock a picture frame from a chest of drawers with the stick.

She groaned with frustration and opened her mouth to comment further, but after one glance at the picture she had in her hand she fell silent. There was an old woman looking at her from the frame. She had a bitter look in her beady eyes, not accepting her fate, longing for her glorious past. She seemed to be hidden inside the shell of her shrunk, wrinkled body, propped against the walking stick.

"This is how it ends, Odile," Bella whispered, putting the picture in its place and turned to James. "Let's get going."

_2008, October - 2010, April_

A/N: Odile and Odette are the characters from "The Swan Lake". Odile is sometimes wrongly referred to as "Black Swan", the costume often adding to the confusion.


	2. Jealousy

Sitting on the wooden boxes littering some dingy back street, Bella swung her legs back and forth, kicking the planks with the backs of her heels. She was waiting, less and less patiently, for James to return. He'd had some business to settle with an old friend of his, and if they had hunted together, Bella was sure she didn't want to meet this man.

Bella and James rarely visited cities. The swarms of people distracted them both, although each in a different manner. Bella liked to observe the city's night life from entirely different position, not the potential victim but potential predator. James liked to begin with observation. Bella had always made sure to feed before they left the forest; James didn't mind hunting in the concrete jungle.

There wasn't much to watch where she was sitting now. The street was deserted; the night life apparently concentrating in more presentable parts of the city. From time to time a drunkard passed her by. Sometimes a car hissed on the wet asphalt.

Restless, Bella shifted on the boxes. The fact that she had all eternity before her now didn't make her more patient. There was still no sign of James. She didn't know when or how, but lately she was getting anxious whenever he wasn't near. She guessed she got used to his constant presence and unrelenting stare.

The voices disrupted the silence. Turning her head towards the source of the sounds, Bella saw three young men coming her way, laughing and speaking loudly, clearly inebriated.

Bella froze and blended into the background. Bringing attention to herself was something she tried to avoid at all costs. It wasn't fear, at least not for herself—not with James on the horizon.

She wouldn't have paid the trio much attention, were it not for the fact that one of them bore a striking resemblance to Jacob. So much so in fact that, without thinking, Bella jumped off the boxes. The boy and his companions were now standing in the middle of the crossroads. Bella came up a few steps to take a better look at him.

And again, she might have let them pass, hiding in the shadows, but they said their goodbyes and parted ways. The one that looked like Jacob loitered there, just a few feet from her, rummaging through his pockets. Half-lit by a nearby street lamp, with his head tilted to one side so his long, glossy hair fell over his face, his broad shoulders hunched forward and wrapped in a too-large parka, he resembled Jacob to the point that Bella wasn't sure any more.

Maybe he'd let his hair grow again, maybe he'd left the reservation and his pack, maybe he'd moved to the city... As improbable as it was, the chance existed. Bella couldn't resist the temptation to say hello to him and ask how he was doing, to see those dark, honest eyes focused on her again.

When Bella came up to the boy, he lifted his unfocused gaze, still searching his pockets.

It was clear to her now that it wasn't Jacob, but the way he looked from under his lashes was so like him that Bella decided to speak to him anyway, if only to look for more resemblances.

She smiled to the boy and asked the first thing that came to her mind, "Do you know what time it is?"

His thick lips draw back in a self-satisfied smile, revealing white and even teeth, in a gesture so similar to Jacob's that Bella's chest tightened.

"Sure, I know." He swayed on his feet and went back to his pockets, something metallic jingling inside them.

Bella stifled a giggle.

"So, could you tell me?"

"Sure," he mumbled without lifting his head, his hands working furiously in one pocket after the other. "Can't find it," he added, frustrated.

"Find what?" Bella smiled.

"The watch," the boy answered distractedly, then caught himself, snapping his eyes up to her. With a sharp, drunken solemnity, he started to explain. "I mean, not the watch. I don't have a watch but it shows the time too, so it's basically the same thing." He stilled, waiting for her validation.

"Certainly." Laughing, Bella tried to pry more details from him, "But what exactly are you looking for?"

"Can't remember the name." He reached to his back pocket, fished a cell phone out of it, and triumphantly raised it into the air. "Almost midnight," he stated. His gaze focused on something over Bella's right shoulder, and he said, "Oh, hi!"

Bella froze. A solid arm wound itself around her waist, pulling her to the right in a possessive gesture, bringing her hip to rest against a firm thigh. Without looking she knew to whom this thigh belonged to. James had a strange affinity for making an appearance when he was least needed.

A quiet voice spoke in something that could be mistaken for calmness by those who didn't know better. "Care to introduce me to your friend?"

"He's not my friend," Bella replied quickly. She tried to turn to walk away, have it all ignored and done with. James had other idea and didn't release her.

"A foe, then?" His voice was deceptively light.

"No. No! He's nobody. I don't even know him."

"You're boyfriend kinda nervous," the boy remarked, quite amused, jabbing the air with his cell phone in a vain attempt to put it in his shirt pocket.

"He's not my boyfriend!" Bella snapped at him, and that shifted James' attention from the boy to her.

"No? So what's he doing?" The poor, drunk fool went into righteous indignation. "Hey, move!" Unaware, he shoved James in the chest hard with the same result as if he tried to push a brick wall.

Still holding Bella to himself with his left hand, James caught the boy by his throat quicker than the eyes were able to register, but not clenching his fingers yet.

"Whoa! Keep your hands to yourself!" Jacob's look-alike tried to pry the fingers open but to no avail. Something like fear flickered in his dazed eyes. "Look, whatever it is I'm sure we can settle it peacefully."

Ignoring him completely, James turned to Bella. "Who's this?"

Bella tried not to give in to panic. She tried to wriggle from James' grasp, but he didn't so much as budge. "I told you. I don't know him. Let him go, please."

He spoke as if he didn't hear her.

"You don't iever/i try to make contact with humans, yet now, when I leave you for barely fifteen minutes, trusting you to not make anything foolish, you're suddenly on friendly terms with just a passing stranger. Excuse me when I doubt it," he finished, whispering into her ear.

Bella put her palm on James' chest, trying to placate him. She had happened to hear him shouting several times, yet he came to his worst when feigning composure.

While his words were still ringing in her ears, she heard another sound: a ghastly gurgling. Looking past James' cold smile, she saw the boy's swarthy face purple and swollen, his lips parted in a futile attempt at catching some air. Evidently, at some point of his speech, James clamped his fingers.

Bella tugged sharply at the shirt over James' chest. "Don't do it, please! We've only talked. He was going to tell me the time."

James raised his eyebrows and lazily turned to the boy.

"Ah, so you thought it would be a good idea to chat up a lonely girl? Not good idea at all." Suddenly, releasing Bella, he shoved the boy hard against the nearby wall, knocking his head against it. The boy's eyes widened in pain and another wheeze escaped his throat.

Bella jumped to James and clung at his sleeve. "He didn't, James!" His name had a desired effect. He relented his grip, allowing his sputtering victim to draw some air into his burning lungs. "I did. I'm sorry! Just let him go."

James snaked his arm around her waist again and brought her closer to him. His eyes changed back from furious to cold.

Bella drew a shaky breath. "He resembles someone I once knew."

James examined the boy carefully but didn't find what he was looking for. "Yes, Bella, I'm listening," he said slowly and leaned toward her as if he didn't want to miss a single word.

"A boy." Her lips made a stubborn line, as if she struggled to not say more than necessary.

"I gathered as much. Go on." James' whole attention was focused on her. He cradled her encouragingly against his side.

Feeling sudden dryness in her mouth, Bella swallowed hard. "Of the Quileute tribe. I... I used to hang out with him, when... when Edward..." She looked up at James' attentive eyes, not sure how he would react to the name, but James didn't give away his feelings. "When Edward had left. His name was Jacob." She looked expectantly at James.

"I'm not Jacob at all," the boy croaked. "I'm—"

James' hand tightened its hold. It elicited another gurgle from his victim.

"Did I ask you?" he said without turning his head.

Bella saw the veins pulsing wildly under James' fingers. She knew how it must have affected him. "Just let him go. He didn't do anything." Her lips started to quiver, and she cast her eyes down. Frowning, she opened her mouth to speak, but before she managed to articulate the first word, she felt the insistent lips pressing against hers. His thumb and forefinger were under her chin, lifting it, tilting her head upward. The tip of his tongue touched the underside of her upper lip, gently trying to coax her mouth to open.

Shocked, Bella gasped and pulled away sharply. With her mouth hanging open, she stared incredulously into James' eyes.

He was breathing hard. His gaze traveled to her lips and back to her eyes, uncharacteristically unsure.

A violent jerk shook them both and then the stamping of feet against the asphalt echoed in the empty street. James' right arm fell heavily against his side, but he didn't move otherwise, still holding Bella to himself.

She looked over his shoulder after the retreating figure, now barely visible in the darkness.

"He ran away," she whispered with relief and looked at James.

"Let him," James said hoarsely, licking his lips.

He shifted his weight, and Bella felt her hipbone digging into his thigh. He was much taller. Suddenly, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him earnestly, melting into his embrace.


End file.
